Things Engineers Like: Free Food
You read the title and you probably thought, "Everyone loves free food" or "$Free.99?! That's my dog!". That's probably the honest truth for most people (Damn that 1%!). But throughout my time in college, I went to plenty of engineering events/lectures just because of the free food; I had to survive the poor college student life somehow right? Some of lectures turned out to be quite interesting and expanded the garden of my mind!
The thought of free food have captivated engineers throughout their careers. It all started in high school with gummy bears in Science Club, cookies at Chess Club, snacks at Math Club, and even more promised food at competitions. Then, UConn captured my heart with free pizza. To feed the endless cycle, there was free pizza for volunteers at Open Houses and try to convince prospective students to come to UConn. And as most college graduates know well, people will wait for hours at a time just for a single piece of FREE pizza!
As we all know, I increased the membership of UConn IEEE over 1000%. It may have been due to the advertisement of free nourishment (Oh how I miss those IEEE BBQs) but I don't think it was the most significant factor. During the previous years, they also had free food but they were doing it all wrong; they were advertising the meeting and not the food! Silly people. But seriously, the food probably pushed people to come and then the organization kept people interested. And if it wasn't the food that convinced them to come, it was my extremely good looks and my smooth personality.
Even outside of the academic world, I'm pulled into going to events/lectures with free food. And I'm using the same technique to persuade co-workers to come to the Lunch and Learns I setup for work! The cycle of free food will never end!
P.S. Look at the handsome guy at the right of the picture above; so kind to feed all those engineers! (Especially the Ginger to the left! Hahaha, sorry I had to do it Brendan!) I miss our ECE/CSE group!